


I Spy

by misslonelyhearts



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 11:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslonelyhearts/pseuds/misslonelyhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a short one-off.  a moment of respite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Spy

“I spy. . .something starting with R.” says Shepard for the third time in as many turns.  His boots remain propped on the edge of the open shuttle deck, arms thrown loosely around his knees.

When Steve snorts from somewhere behind the Kodiak, Kaidan glances sideways at the Commander.

“If it’s ‘rocks’ again I’m putting you in stasis.” But they smile at one another easily enough, and turn to watch dust kick up around their landing site.  Which should have also been a take-off site as of two hours ago.  Shepard nods, rubbing gloved hands over grit and stubble.  Kaidan paces, opening and closing his omni-tool, before finally turning to the jagged landscape.  Vids about the American West were like this. Scrubby shrubs breaking up abstract patterns of red and orange rock.  “Okay.  I spy something. . .starting with J.”

“You always spy that, though.” The Commander watches Vega, too, and a different set of smiles altogether passes between them, adding perhaps a bit more color to the Major’s face than he’d care to admit.  When they knew they were grounded, Vega had stripped his armor and begun running drills.  Kaidan watches him move tirelessly now from one set of pushups to another.  Burpees to sprints.  Following, squinting under the blade of his hand, the biotic can just hear the count-off running in Vega’s head.  In his veins.

“Doesn’t give you much choice, does he?” comes a soft voice, and the subtle clearing of a throat.

They turn to find Cortez emerging from the Kodiak’s open maintenance panel.  He wipes his hands on a rag, shaking his head.  After a moment, he turns to Shepard, “We’re good to go.”

Shepard slides out of the shuttle, stretching, and gazes at the three moons rising on the planet’s horizon.  To Kaidan they look like faces emerging in a fog.  The Commander turns to him, the heft of the day’s mission tumbling away to reveal a lighter voice than he’s heard in years.  Shepard picks up his rifle. “I think we can spare a few more minutes.”

For an hour, they practice shooting.  Kaidan biotically throwing piles of rocks while Shepard and Vega blast them to sprays of powder high in the air.  The sun burns the tops of their ears and the various planes of cheeks and noses, cut with scars and freckles alike, and Cortez breaks out Vega’s secret stash of cerveza . . .to the soldier’s vehement denial.

Half the beer vanishes from the crate as gloved hands dive in after it.

“That’s a case you owe me, Commander.” James grins over the glint of metal at his lips.  All three moons clamber up the purpling sky, and the men gathered on the rocky precipice don’t say much about any of it.  Not the war, and not the passing beauty of a day removed from it.  Kaidan takes Shepard’s empties, offers him another, and doesn’t keep himself from sitting closer as he watches the familiar fall of knees, the marine’s and the pilot’s, as they talk about colony facilities.  Steve takes his cap off, setting it on his lap, and settles lower into the sloping rock behind him.

“I just wish every building hadn’t looked the same, you know?”  His mouth flits into the shape of an old joke, one he can’t share with them really. “Made deliveries difficult unless they planted a geranium or posted a flag.”

“Tell me about it, man.” The marine purses his mouth, looking down at the can in his palm. “I got so lost.  Felt like a kid in my uncle’s neighborhood again.  Didn’t figure on a colony being worse to navigate than New York.”

Kaidan watches Cortez’s eyebrows sink, blue gaze gauging nothing more than the marine’s thick fingers.  The pilot takes the can a second before they’re all sure James is going to crush it with his fist, or his forehead, or both.  The Major wants to chime in, offer his brief experience on Horizon as a marker in his favor, and pulls back on the lump of acceptance in his throat before he can speak.  James sniffs dismissively, pops the joints in his neck, and lifts the hat off Steve’s lap.  It goes on his broad head backwards, of course.

“One more.” Shepard lurches to his feet, fishes out another cerveza for James, and stands at the cliff overlooking a valley of deepening red rock. He barely raises the can, but it’s enough. “To the colonies.”

 


End file.
